


12x23 Coda: Gone

by numbjaw



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Gen, Grieving Dean, Post-Episode: s12e23 All Along the Watchtower, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 16:40:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10948518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/numbjaw/pseuds/numbjaw
Summary: Cas would come back. He always came back.





	12x23 Coda: Gone

Dean knew he needed to get up and run back into the cottage; despite how still and quiet everything was, Sam had been gone for far too long. The back of Dean’s mind was racing, but he couldn’t will himself to move. _Everyone was gone._ He could only stare up at the stars, wondering how they were still shining when everything had gone so terribly wrong.

His mother, whom he’d only just reconnected with, was now sealed in a universe where neither himself nor Sam had ever been born - with, what was surely, a super pissed Lucifer. Without Rowena, or Crowley - a sacrifice that Dean was still processing - there was no immediate go-to for a means to open it back up again.

And then there was Cas…

The scorched wing marks in the dirt on either side Castiel’s frame still gave off a faint bit of heat. For as many times as Dean had seen the tell-tale sign of a dead angel, the simple fact it was _Castiel’s_ wings burned there had him frozen in place. He kept hoping, faintly, that Cas would magically snap back to life. Seraph, angel, or human; stone cold (dick) soldier, with amnesia, or off his rocker - Dean would take any of them back. But no matter how hard he kept praying and how long he kept waiting waiting, Castiel only continued to lie there - motionless, lifeless, gone.

 _‘What were you thinkin’?’_ Dean thought as he stared down at him, unable to get the image of the angel blade emerging from Castiel’s chest as his grace erupted out of his mind. _‘This the future you had in mind?’_

Dean couldn’t stay with him any longer. He needed to get to Sam and deal with the nephilim before things got any worse - which, in his experience, they very well could. As he pushed himself back up from the ground, he took one last look at Castiel, a strange sense of finality coming over him. He grit his teeth and felt an all-too-familiar numbness settle within him in the place of his shock and grief as he burst back into the cottage.

“Sam?!” He called, immediately rushing for the stairs.

“Dean, I’m here!” He heard Sam call back and it was the only spot of relief Dean could feel past the nothingness that had overtook him.

Dean rounded the top of the stairs and caught sight of Kelly lying still in the bed. He could tell right away she was dead, and without any sign of a baby or Sam, he pushed on towards the room at the end of the hall - the nursery. Odd footprints led the way to Sam, who was curiously sitting in the middle of the room and staring at a childlike painting of an apple tree. Four apples read out the name “JACK” - probably Kelly’s doing. Dean knelt next to Sam and gave his shoulder a firm squeeze.

“Sam? You alright? Where’s the kid?” Dean asked him, and Sam just shook his head, defeated.

“Sam?” Dean asked again, before getting back up and rushing to the crib.

“Don’t bother, Dean,” Sam finally said, “He’s not in there. And he’s no baby, either.”

Dean looked from the empty crib and back to Sam. “Where is he?”

“I only got a glimpse of him before he flew off,” Sam explained, before adding, “I screwed up, Dean. I-I should’ve stopped him - ”

“Stopped a half-archangel nephilim, _by yourself_?” Dean finished.

“Dean, he opened that portal!” Sam suddenly shouted, clearly distraught, “And I know he can open it again - and we have to open it and go back, we gotta get Mom out of there, before…”

Dean grimaced as Sam trailed and looked back to the crib. He felt everything flooding back to him but bit it back again.

“Did he say anything to you?” Dean asked slowly.

“No… not really,” Sam answered bitterly, “I told him I just wanted to talk, and he said there wasn’t anything to say before he zapped off… but Dean, _he knew my name_.”

Dean stilled as he took in the new details before noticing a faint, golden glow down the hallway. Sam noticed it, too, and they both darted after it’s source, steadily fading from Kelly’s room. As they turned into the doorway, the glowing had faded and Kelly… was gone.

Dean and Sam exchanged bewildered looks before Dean caught the same faint glowing from the window - outside. His heart dropped. _Cas._

Dean lost Sam a few paces back at the stairs as he rushed back outside, just in time to see Castiel’s body quickly fading away into the light that looked strikingly similar to the portal…

“NO!” He shouted, diving towards Castiel, with Sam not far behind.

As his hands collided with the light surrounding Castiel, he felt a sudden surge of cool air within a blinding flash. Just for a second, he thought he heard the echo of birds chirping, and then a familiar voice…

_“Not yet, Dean.”_

When he opened his eyes, he was staring right back at the dirt again, with the only trace of Castiel left being the burned wing marks. Once more, he was kneeling and feeling compelled to stare up at the sky.

“Dean…?” Sam asked cautiously from behind him.

Dean’s walls had finally collapsed, and he struggled to speak at first.

“I heard him, Sammy.”

“Cas?”

Dean nodded, keeping his sight on the stars. “That means he’s still out there. And we’ll find him. We’ll find Mom. And we’ll bring ‘em home. We’ll bring them _all_ home.”

**Author's Note:**

> First attempt at a coda... that finale messed me up and writing felt like the only cure! I feel like I could make something more of this if anyone is interested.


End file.
